


Shards & Broken Glass

by Mthaelly



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Character Death, Everyone Needs A Hug, M/M, Poor Thor (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 13:57:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16220498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mthaelly/pseuds/Mthaelly
Summary: " There is no one I love more."Thor sees himself in the mirror, a stranger. But he sees something else.He sees a dead brother." I'll never love anyone more."





	Shards & Broken Glass

 

And o'er the spot the crowd may tread 

In carelessness or mirth, 

There is an eye which could not brook 

A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,

Nor gaze upon the spot; 

There flowers or weeds at will may grow, 

So I behold them not: 

It is enough for me to prove 

That what I lov'd, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot; 

To me there needs no stone to tell, 

_'Tis Nothing that I lov'd so well._

                            
  
  
  


There is no grave, no memorial, no memento.

No soft spoken words, no howls of the grief. In the end, when Thor crawled over to him there was already nothing left to say.

He was gone. Just like that.

And Thor couldn't hear anything else than the sickening crack of his aching heart as oblivion swarmed his vision.

_Snap, snap, snap._

∆

He doesn't dare to look at himself.

Once he passes the mirror in his quarters. His long, empty quarters in Wakanda, a place of sleek edges and too many empty rooms, that once must've been quite occupied. He doesn't think about that too.

He passes the mirror, long and the surface pristine. Reflective.

He sees himself, a face with mismatched eyes and shorn, shaggy hair. An unshaved beard; aching emptiness and the silent grief that had etched it marks beneath his weary eyes.

He sees a stranger.

He sees a familiar face.

He shudders, turning away abruptly.  
  


_Don't look. Don't look._  
  


There will only be a stranger staring back at him from the mirror. 

Thor stares back at the glass, his eyes shifting.  
  


_Snap, snap, snap._  
  


He watches tears start to form at the edges of his one good eye, devoid of colour.  
 

_Hello. Brother._  
  


∆  
  
  


Rocket, at first had assumed that all 'humies' were like Quill.

Stuck on said humies's planet, Rocket thought perhaps he assumed wrongly. Bullheaded and sometimes foul mouthed as Quill was, the place wasn't bad. Rocket found himself occupying himself with things from time to time. Investigating, redesigning, and stealing humie tech if he could.

The Wakadan labs were not bad either, though it was vastly different from the ones he were used to. He stiffly told Shuri, (a quite clever humie princess) that he could figure it out himself.

" You kidding? Human tech is like a thousand lightyears behind than the simplest molecular motor in a blender. "

Shuri, who had come to receive them some hours after they arrived again to Wakadan fields to gather aid, had led Rocket into her lab on his request.

" Molecular blender? What's that for?"

" Yeah? What's a raccoon?"

" That's, you?"

" Like a rabbit?"

" No."

" K, so what's a rabbit?"

The questioning dragged on for a while and in the end Shuri had to excuse herself. But not before Rocket had answered her the mysteries about the molecular motor in the blender.He had to resist laughing as Shuri gaped wide eyed at his answer. She had left, with a twinkle in her eye that he recognised all too well.  
  


_Like Quill, when he's making up 12% of a stupid plan._  
  


He would've like to tell Quill that even though he's an ass, his planet wasn't that much of an ass as he was.

He doesn't really get the chance though.  

   
  
  


" Hey Thunderbolt." Rocket says as he sits beside him , gun in hand.

The rubble shifts as Thor makes a place for him to sit.

" I'm not a rabbit."

" You're not?"

" Yeah, turns out I'm a trash panda."  
  
It breaks Thor out of his recent stark demeanour as he cracks a small laugh, if only for a while.

" What's a panda?"

" A raccoon."  
  
  


∆

In his dreams, the world seems to muddy into indiscernible time.

He is young, when he was still very much himself. Bright, energetic and bursting with happiness and pride.

Loki too. Not as energetic, or bull-headed;but not as sharp or cold either. And Thor likes to think, still very much his little brother.

He bounds over to Loki in a flurry. Loki, who smiles like the sun and opens his arms for him. Thor finds himself leaping like a great beast towards him, happiness bursting at the seams.

It is joy like flying, even without wings.

All at once, he fades through Loki.

There is nothing but dust. The skies crumbles, and the world goes dark.

He is dangling, the wind howling into his ears and screaming at his lungs. He holds onto the staff like a lifeline.

There is a deep despair on Loki's face as he had never seen before.

He does not look like his little brother anymore. Not his sunlike smiles, his quick wit and painful pranks.

He looks....

He lets go.

_Snap, snap, snap._

Stop

Stop

Stop  
  
Stop  
    
_Do not leave me._

He wakes, and there is a trail of inky black liquid leading to his bathroom.

He follows it, shaking.

The aparrition; his brother beckons him. A ghost on the face of the mirror. Who belongs in another world.

_Now, now. 'Tis but a dream._

It is a lie he knows, but it is the only comfort his ailing mind can conjure for him.  
  
He grasps on it through the night, his fingers digging into a rotting arm.  
  


∆

   
  
" I think we've overstayed as much here."

The remaining, Steve, Natasha, Thor and the others, were gathered around a vacant room when Steve walked in, said it.

Wakanda, the world; the universe had lost. And the guilt eats and burrows at Natasha's bones like maggots. It was all terribly surreal.

Of course, she doesn't let it shake her as much as it does her insides, frigid and trembling. She leans her head, and heaved a breath or two. Thinking.

She notes Bruce at the end of the couch, the raccoon perched on the edge of a chair.  Rhodey's face wrung with lines of fatigue,of quiet despair. Steve clenching and unclenching hands.

Thor's muteness, his mismatched eye, the scar across it; the rigid posture, unmoving.

And herself, the worms that burrows under rotting flesh in her skin.

"We could try Clint's."

It couldn't hurt, or be for the worst if they tried.

Not now, not ever than this istance, suspended in time.

Steve nods, and the others give nods or other signs of agreement.

Thor who doesn't blink, but follows them to the jet anyway.  
  
  
  
  


                                             
They arrive to an empty house, devoid of life.

Children's drawings, unwashed plates and an obnoxious, loud television.  
   
Thor doesn't blink, Natasha sees, not even a bit.  
 

∆

A little mirror with a small cabinet on the side. Empty bottles, some half full ones. A toothbrush in a cup on the sink below it.

The lingering water of the shower washes the dirt and muck off him. The little shower feels dwarfed by his large, hunched back.  
He is bending down, further and further until he wants to be totally engulfed by the water of the showerhead.  
 

The mirror. The mirror.

It hangs there, with Thor's back to it. The shower curtain transparent enough for it to be seen.

_Don't._

The mirror still hangs behind him, like a beckoning,  tempteous mistress.

_Don't._

_Don't._

Thor curls onto himself, his knees bracketing his face. He looks terribly, awkwardly big against the small shower space.

_Don't look._

His mind is still sound. But his heart is already half dead and mad.

So he looks anyway.

_My dear._

_How have you been?_

He almost floats above the shower tiles, the light casting no shadow beneath them.

He crawls towards it; _him?_ His one good eye over the brim with colourless tears. He reaches for his hands, wispy and grey with bony fingers.

The lights in the bathroom dim, and all the sudden Loki is standing on his feet. A serene smile on his face. He cups Thor cheeks in his bony, bony fingers.

All at once, the water turns red.

Thor shivers and leans into his fingers.

And when it talks, it _rasps_ out words from its dead, decaying lungs. In Loki's voice, one he has known all his long life.

It a curse, one that Thor is unwilling, unable to break.

He is kneeling in a sea of red, the sound of the shower muffled behind him as he slowly sinks further and deeper. He grabs onto those soft, rotting arms; corpse pale in the dimming lights. It almost glows he thinks.

" Loki,"

_Yes?_

" Please, hold me."

And it does. So suddenly crushing his head against its rickety looking body that he gasps for breath. It's bony fingers like sharp, pointed needles against his scalp. He chokes for fading breaths of air. There is a tapping sound ringing in his ears.

It smiles again, cold and cruel through spots of black in his eyes. The lack of air and the sound of the tapping getting louder makes him delirious.

_Close enough for you?_

  
" Thor!? The fuck is going on in there?"

Thor wakes up finding himself sprawled in front of the mirror, butt naked.

The shower still runs, and beads of transparent water slide down his skin.

The mirror is fogged over. Expected from a long, unplanned bath. He wraps a towel around himself.

" I though you were attacked in there! What the fuck!?"

" I apologize friend Rocket."

" Whatever. Just don't take a fucking jacuzzi bath in there."

  
Rocket enters the rather damp bathroom, the floors too slippery and the air too humid. There is a strong smell that hurts his nose.

Fucking humie soap. What weird tastes.

He goes over to the sink to rinse his nose.

The mirror is cracked.

∆

Two weeks in, and the utter silence struck unto the world broke as a frenzied fury began to settle in.

Missing leaders, personnel, officers; people, friends, loved ones.

And most of them needed someone to blame,to let free their grief and outrage at the unfairness, the suddeness of everything.

There were a shortage of people now, but the news anchors were still on, rambling about frenzied outbursts and cars being set on fire. That was just New York though.

Natasha didn't spare a glance for the rest of the world, it was the same. Grief, despair, outrage; it was the air they were forced to breathe now.

"Nick's gone, and Shield is trying to keep up."

Rhodey leans back in a empty chair.

" They need help, and there's not enough help to go around anymore." Steve says.  
  
He looks to Natasha, waiting for a reply. For her to speak for everyone else in the room. Who had not bounced back as quick. She nods quietly.

" I'll get the jet fired up."

" I'll go but not sure if I can help though." Bruce still hasn't been able to coax the Hulk out of confinement. Rhodey gets up with Rocket in tow behind to pick their equipment, stashed in the garage.

" All right, meet up in the jet in about 15 minutes." Steve says before trudging out of the door.

Sometime later, he comes back and finds Thor in the exact spot, rooted in his seat. He walks to him, and nudges him a bit. It barely shakes him, for Thor is all rigid muscles and unseeing eyes.

It unerves Steve, a cold gust of wind suddenly crawling down his spine. He coughs and tries again.

" Thor, you coming?"

And Thor blinks rapidly, as if shaken awake from an unseen trance. He shuffles to his feet, standing tall against the latter. The air of uneasiness fades, if just that little bit as Thor ruffles his shorn hair.

" Of course." Thor smiles and walks out the room. He hears the sound of the axe's solid call to Thor's hand as he follows behind.

It seemed so foreign, to see Thor swinging his newfound weapon, so used to fighting alongside him when he wielded that hammer. To see him call upon a thunderous bolt of lightning as never before with a tremendous crackle of sound and light.

It's been quite some time since all of them of  had seen him. Perhaps new and previously unthought of things coming to pass should not be as surprising or foreign. For none of them, except Bruce- who didn't speak of it, and no one asked- had an inkling of what had happened since then.  
  


And yet, none so as foreign and strange, as Thor's replying smile. As if forced all the way.

  
∆

Natasha cooks more often that she likes to.

Her skills were to say the least, passable. It was definitely better that those frozen dinners they would eat if she hadn't step in to say something about it.

Besides, it was something to do. To fill in the stretches of time between the next assignment, then the next.

And for some reason, Thor opts to help.

It was comical, seeing his large hands mould pizza dough and wearing oven gloves. It was surprising that he even knew how to cook at all.  
  
She doesn't question though, its good to have help around.  
 

They had come back late today. It was almost 9 and none of them have eaten since morning.  
Natasha decides for pasta. Easy, quick.  
  
"Has anyone seen Thor?"

Bruce shakes his head.

"I think he went to the bathroom? I passed him left from the hallway." Rhodey quips from the couch.  
  
" Thanks." She walks to the bathroom.

The sound of the shower can be heard behind the door.

Something else too. It's sounds breathy, like gasps of air.

Her eyebrows furrow.

" Thor? You in there?"

Nothing. A resounding gasp. Through the gap below the door she can see the dim of the lights. Her eyebrows furrow further.

" Thor? You alright?"

Her bare feet feels wet, and she realises the water inside must be overflowing. She glances at her feet.

Her foot is smeared in black, oozy liquid.

What?

Her heart thumps faster as she rams her fist against the door in a series of loud, thumping knocking.

" Thor, open the door!"  
    
Pressing her ears to the door, she strains to hear the inside. There is a voice, not Thor's. It rasps and chills her to the bone.

_Come closer._

_You can't bear it can you?_

_This pain. I know I know, it's unbearable isn't it?_  
  


_Let me take it away_  
  


She kicks open the door.

The water on the floor slushes as she pulls open the shower curtain hurriedly.

She breathed in panicky breaths.

Thor is laying, leaning on the shower wall. The shower rains over his prone form. He looks asleep.

Letting out a nervous exhale, she kneels down to him. Gently, she taps her fingers against his face. He grunts and rouses, his wet eyelashes wet with water, and something else. With tears, she realises.

" Loki."

She feels suddenly flushed. She had caught him in the act of....something. What is was, and whether it was bad or good, it was clearly something private. Was he dreaming? Was that voice his own sleep talk or something? Or can gods conjure up their dreams for reals?

Thor just continues rambling in jumbled words, clearly disoriented.

He looks almost hallucinatory.

Natasha doesn't dare to move.

"What the hell?" The hushed voice of Rhodey prompts   her back to reality. Steve stands behind a mortified Bruce, who looks clearly distressed. He doesn't look calm about it too. Rocket looks almost... expectant of the situation.

A strong smell suddenly hits her nose.

She recognized it with creeping familiarity.

" Yeah. You smell that soap too?"

Natasha stands and turns to Rocket. His furry arms are crossed.  
  
" It's really good at knocking up my nose."

" It's not shampoo." She says.

His eyebrows raise.

Steve had moved into the bathroom, standing grimly.

" It's like...iron or something."

His face goes pale. She nods.

" It's blood."  
  


∆

The day when Loki fell, the beginnings of grief began to sow itself into Thor heart.

Sow itself, like thick vines;curling. The beginnings of grief, wallowed and weaved into the shape of the spiteful prince who had chosen to fall.

The day when Loki fell, Thor did not catch him.

And with him a piece of his heart, whom he never gave back.  

_You let me fall._

_You didn't even try._

 

_You let me die._  
   
_You let me die._

_You let me die._

_You let me die._

_You let me die._  
  
_You let me die._

_You let me die._

_You let me die._

_You let me die._

_You let me die._

_You let me die._

_I wanted to die too._

_Oh Loki, let me die too._

  
-  
  


_Tell me how much you love me._

He dreams are not kind. His mind weaves a cruel world of his muddled grief. It is a yawning chasm with no end.

So he wakes. To escape his guilt he runs to the mirror, falls to his knees in front him.

It is him. It must be.

For Loki's face is one that has never left his memory. It is etched with the lines and curves of millennia spent together, of cherry pink days and endless nights. The green of his eyes as blinding and eternal as the bright, dying stars .

And Thor wouldn't forget, not even when the stars and suns die out and the world collapses.

_"There is no one I love more"_

  
And this Loki, with green orbs bulging out of his sockets, smiles. He squeezes Thor's face with grey hands, mushing his cheeks against sinnewy palms.  
   
He is a corpse, but Loki all the same.

Stubborn, prideful, _beautiful_ Loki. Who left him in life and haunts him in death. Who stabs a dagger into him and heals it all the same.

His fingers squeeze further, and Thor's eyes rolls back behind his lids as tears slide out from them. It paints a bloody trail down his cheeks.

_" There is no one I'll ever love more."_  
  


∆

There are rare comforts to be found nowadays.

Steve understands, probably best of all. Bucky had been dead, then not. But it was almost like death. For what had been given back was a mere shell of him, filled with raw pain and anger.

Steve understands the guilt most of all. It eats the heart out and festers in every vein, spreading slowly but surely.

Until eventually, everything just collapses.

That must be madness, he presumes.

" We lost, I know. Everyone's lost too but Thor he...for him...it's just....gone. Everything, everyone." Bruce mumbles with hands wrung together.

Madness borne of grief. It would break anyone, even gods.

" I don't know what to say, he's not....fine at all."

Rocket perches on a low chair. He grunts.

" Yeah, he's not fine. "

" But is he really just.... hallucinating is the question?" Rhodey voices lowly.

  
" The mirror." Natasha quips. Rocket raises his head, ears twitching.

" We'll have to take it away."  
  
  
  
  
  
  


_Wake up!_

_Wake up!_

_Save me!_

∆

There is a nagging headache throbbing in his temples from all that lack of sleep.

The riots that day were exhausting, and by the time they were finished he felt like a ticking time bomb as he returned to the jet. He wants to sleep, if he can.

The ride back is silent. No one says a word.

Thor hides his face in his hands, trying to wring the headache out of his system.

The others exchange weary glances as the jet lands.

Thor treads to the bathroom hurriedly.

_Save me!_

_Save me!_

The fury boils over.

"What have you done?"

He says, anger poorly hidden. Steve turns to him, so does all of them. Bruce looks weary and worried. It infuriates him.

" Where is it?"

" Where is what, Thor?" Natasha says, all to gently.

His fist clenches." The mirror."

" Its cracked Thunderbolt. It's spoiled."

The words strike a chord within him. All at once he feels denial start to creep in on his anger.

" No, it is not."

Bruce eyes him with pity, they all do. He is all too grateful for the  sudden rush of fury that overpowers his growing panic and denial. He does not need pity.

Steve approaches a little closer to him.

" You can let go now. It's alright."

What?

_Save me!_

" No."

_Stop._

" No."

Bruce moves across the room to him.

_No_

_Stop it._

" Thor."

_Stop, stop_

" He's gone."

_Snap, snap, snap._

" Thor?" Bruce looks terribly pale.

_Stop_

_Stop it_  
  
_Stop it_

_Stop it_

_Stop it_  
  
_You're killing him_

_You're killing him._

_You're killing him._

_You're killing him._

_You're killing him._

_You're killing him._

_You're killing him._

The headache hits him tenfold. He folds beneath the agony of it. Bruce runs and kneels before him, mortified. 

_Tell me how much you love me_

He can hear screaming. The fires of the broken engine spreading across the corpses of hundreds in purple flame. The fires of Hel.

" Thor!? Thor, look at me!"

_Don't look._

He sees Loki, a gleaming corpse in  blood. Who struts across the floor to him, his cloak dragging lines of bloody, bleeding red behind him. His teeth are black and leaks unholy black in a ferocious grin.

_No_

_No_

_No_

_No_

_You're in denial_

" I'm not."

_Yes you are._

" You're here."

_You're here_

Thor collapses, almost. The room stars to shake and the lights rattle. Everyone present caught off guard as  the windows and glasses in the kitchen breaks and shatters.

~~No I'm not~~

His scream is a pitiful gasp, and he collapses onto the floor.  
  


∆

  
Thor is not well.

He hasn't been truly well since a long time.

Loki is dead. And there is no grave.

Thor is not well.

He fears he never will be again.

-  
_I want to crawl beneath the earth and lay with him. To pry his coffin open and sleep with him. Deep in the rotting earth so I may rot together with him; so that I may not learn to love anyone else again._

_My brother._

_My dear._

_I'll never love again._

 

∆  
  


" Did I wake you?"

Thor opens his eyes slowly.

" I like your eye."

The world slowly comes to focus, and when Thor finally sees  he lets out a choked cry. His throat feels like it's been burned.

Loki smiles a sad smile. His fingers, pale and smooth like in life soothes his dry cheeks. Thor shifts, or at least tries too. Weary muscles and aching bones disagrees with him.

" Don't. You've outworn yourself so much already."

Loki pushes his back to the bed and the mattress sinks with his weight. He leans their foreheads together, hands gently caressing his shaggy growth.  
Thor wants to say something, anything.

He starts to cry instead.

Loki rubs their noses together and shushes him. He is so incredibly gentle it burns and heals all the same.

" You're not here." Thor blurts.

Loki lays against him, bodies molding together. Gentle rays of sunlight peers through his skin.

" No."

Thor sobs and grabs at him. Desperate. Loki leans closer and brushes a kiss against his eyelids and he shudders. It feels warm, the kiss of the morning sun.

"But it'll be alright."

Loki kisses him. Thor whimpers and returns it. Their lips moulding together , teeth clashing and tongues intertwining. Loki's hair is black, long and soft; Thor's holds onto it with desperation of  a sailor's last gasp for air.

Thor breaks the kiss as his lungs scream at him. Loki lips is do prettily swollen that Thor's broken heart breaks a little more. Loki hands encircle him once more, and he takes them in his hands and intertwines their fingers together. Thor lunges at a pale exposed stretch of neck and sucks at it with teeth and tears, muddled beyond recognition.

Loki moans and it is a most lullifying song. He kisses lower, tears at the leather of his collar to suck at his collarbone. He arches his back and Thor gasps heady.

He is hard and painfully aroused.

He flips over and Loki yelps. His hair fanned out beneath him as he lays beneath him, breathing a bit faster. Thor wonders what he must look right now. He hadn't looked at himself for some time.

Thor leans down to kiss him, arms coming up to circle his neck. The kiss turns heated and tongues are coupled together to muffle heightened moans as he fumbles at Loki clothes until he is bare beneath him. Loki does the same, fingers sliding down his naked scarred skin.

He sobs. Loki kisses him again and grinds against him.

" Don't." He says, achingly sad and Thor wants it to go away. He moans as their cocks rut and doubles the pace. Loki gives a strained cry.

" I want...I want..." He cries, words lost between their rutting and grief. Loki bares his neck as his back arches, keens at a particularly hard thrust.  
  


" Yes."  
 

And he will never forget the weight and taste of Loki on his tongue, his pleasured screams and cries. Like a drug, the feeling of pushing inside him is intoxicating. His eyes rolls behind his lids, and his hips move on their own accord.

  
It is a curse. It is a sin. It is a blessing.

It doesn't matter anymore.

He pushes his hips to his shoulders to allow more leverage and pounds harder. Loki cries and screams beneath, dark lashes wet with tears. A picture of sultry ruin; a picture of hollow longing. Thor grits his teeth and bites and suckles at his chest. Loki clenches tighter around him, the heat in his groin coiling and coiling still.

  
_You left me here_

His thrusts becomes erratic and Loki is bended in half. His cries like screams.

_How could you?_

 

" T..Tho....ahhhh...Thor.."

 

_How could you?_

 

  
" Uhnnn..nnn...I...ghahhh...I'm...."

 

_How could you?_

" I'm.. AHHHH!!'

Loki spills between them with a pitched cry and Thor follows suit. Cresting and groaning as he holds himself still and empties himself inside. Loki gaps for air beneath, beads of tears sliding down his reddened cheeks.

Thor sags and collapses on him. He cries and cries and cries.

Loki's  hands comes to wipe them away, thumb swiping away one by one that leaks from his own eye. The fake one is dry. He wonders if one eye is enough for the tears he will cry.

_Thor_

_You should know that,_

_In life, or death_

_I will always be yours._  
  


                                                      _I love you so_

 

∆ 

Rocket gives him a shaving blade as requested. He stole it, probably; most likely. Judging from the smirk of his face and Rhodey's shaggy, unshaved beard.

Natasha hands him a small pocket mirror. He smiles and thanks her in gratitude.

Steve gives him shaving cream. Bruce fills a cup of water for him. He thanks them too.

He goes to the bathroom and opens the pocket mirror. Natasha said if he shaved they'll put get a new mirror again.

There is him, only him.

                                    
                      _You look rather dashing shaved_

                                
-  
  
  


Yet how much less it were to gain, 

Though thou hast left me free, 

The loveliest things that still remain, 

Than thus remember thee! 

The all of thine that cannot die 

Through dark and dread Eternity 

Returns again to me, 

And more thy buried love endears 

Than aught except its living years.   
  
  
  


∆

                                         
  
  
  


              

**Author's Note:**

> I did this instead of studying.\\(°^°)/


End file.
